Monika Helfer's final novel to be published posthumously

The final completed work of author Monika Helfer, titled ‘Kreuzers Kinder’, is set to be published posthumously. The 56-chapter novel will appear weekly starting September 12 in ‘Spectrum’, the weekend supplement of the Austrian newspaper Die Presse.

Helfer completed the final chapter just days before her unexpected death on August 2, following a fall in her garden in Hohenems. Her husband, writer Michael Köhlmeier, noted that the couple spent a happy period writing and reading to one another during the creation of the book. Helfer had expressed a desire to finish the entire novel before submitting the first installment.

The story follows three siblings dealing with the trauma of their parents' violent deaths thirty years prior. Bettina Eibel-Steiner, head of ‘Spectrum’, described the work as a ‘tender novel about a dark theme’, noting that it reflects Helfer’s characteristic ability to address dark subject matter with humanity.